Ever wonder how Las Vegas casinos catch card-counting teams at Blackjack tables, like the MIT team immortalized in the film “21” with Kevin Spacey? They use many techniques, some of which are confidential, but one we know about is their use of Entity Analytics on many intersecting streams of information about their patrons or potential employees. I recently had the chance to learn more about Entity Analytics and Big Data from one of the top industry thought leaders, Jeff Jonas of IBM.

Jeff Jonas Kevin Spacey in 21

This opportunity came when Marcel Jemio, Chair of the Fiscal Service Data Stewards at the US Treasury Dept. (and a Forrester client), invited me to a presentation Jeff gave at a special internal event at the Fiscal Service in Washington, D.C. So of course I leapt at the opportunity! Marcel opened the session with an overview of why Treasury is interested in data and analytics: Treasury is charged with helping the nation guard against the kind of national or global financial collapse that triggered the 2007-2009 recession. Therefore it’s crucial that the stewards of the nation’s financial data, like Marcel and his colleagues, continuously improve the insights we gain from this data.